Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Portland, Crime, and Classrooms: What Failing Cities Teach Us About Accountability

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Normally Podcast: Portland, Crime, and Classrooms: What Failing Cities Teach Us About Accountability · Normally

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we're back on. Normally the show with almost takes,
0:04
Speaker 1: but when the news gets weird.
0:05
Speaker 2: I am Mary Captain Camp and I'm Karl Marco. Sorry,
0:08
Speaker 2: Mary Captain.
0:09
Speaker 1: All Right, the news is as busy as my weekend one.
0:12
Speaker 1: So we had one of those weekends where you do
0:14
Speaker 1: so so so many things.
0:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of busy.
0:17
Speaker 4: Price I got through it.
0:19
Speaker 2: It's unpleasant because you just feel like you need another weekend,
0:22
Speaker 2: Like that wasn't a weekend?
0:23
Speaker 3: What was that?
0:24
Speaker 4: What happened there?
0:25
Speaker 5: Yeah?
0:26
Speaker 3: You know I did.
0:27
Speaker 2: On Friday night, I went to see Shane Gillis, and
0:29
Speaker 2: I have to say, even though the show was super
0:32
Speaker 2: raunchy and like definitely went too far from me in
0:35
Speaker 2: a couple of different spots, but I will say I
0:39
Speaker 2: think that Shane Gillis is the most bipartisan comedian working today.
0:45
Speaker 2: And I say that, Look, obviously we were Nate Bergazzi
0:48
Speaker 2: fans on this show. He does not know politics at all.
0:51
Speaker 2: Sebastian Manoscalco, I love him. He really doesn't do politics either.
0:55
Speaker 2: I'm talking people who do politics and make fun of
0:58
Speaker 2: both sides equally. Gillis might be the top of the
1:01
Speaker 2: list for me and the left will never accept him
1:04
Speaker 2: because he codes so conservative, and he talked about how
1:09
Speaker 2: he was like sort of affiliated with BLM, and he
1:13
Speaker 2: was very outraged about the killing of George Floyd and
1:17
Speaker 2: all of this stuff, and how he sort of moved
1:19
Speaker 2: rightward in the last few years. But he still seems
1:22
Speaker 2: very in the middle.
1:23
Speaker 3: And if the left.
1:25
Speaker 2: Would wake up a little bit, they'd realize what they
1:28
Speaker 2: have in a Shane Gillis type.
1:30
Speaker 1: I mean, like normal dudes, whogite and like football and beer,
1:34
Speaker 1: end up getting pushed to the right by the psychos
1:36
Speaker 1: on the left, crazy right, like a storyline I've seen before.
1:41
Speaker 3: You've heard of.
1:42
Speaker 2: This, yes, And then they'd be like, we need a
1:45
Speaker 2: Shane Gillis for the left, Like, yeah.
1:48
Speaker 4: You had one, right, you had one.
1:50
Speaker 1: Now. I do think every time I see live comedy,
1:54
Speaker 1: I have more fun than I thought I was going.
1:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, I get there right now.
1:58
Speaker 1: I get a little nervous to watch other people speak,
2:01
Speaker 1: which is silly because I speak all the time, but
2:02
Speaker 1: that's part of it. It just kind of like I
2:04
Speaker 1: get sympathetic nervousness for other people. Sure, and when they're good,
2:09
Speaker 1: they're great. Chris Rock is also a good one for
2:11
Speaker 1: making fun of all sorts of people. I've seen him
2:13
Speaker 1: live before, and he ticks off everyone at some point
2:17
Speaker 1: during the show.
2:18
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, that's exactly what this was.
2:20
Speaker 2: And I would say Shane Gillis's comments about Joe Biden
2:23
Speaker 2: or the warmest comments I've heard from anyone about Joel
2:26
Speaker 2: Biden in many, many years.
2:28
Speaker 1: So Gillis just went after his fellow comedians, by the way,
2:31
Speaker 1: for performing in Uh. Yeah, he's not afraid to jump
2:36
Speaker 1: in the mix.
2:36
Speaker 4: All right, little news, Yes, yes, okay.
2:41
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk education because we like to
2:44
Speaker 1: get into that, and there's a couple crazy stories.
2:48
Speaker 4: One, let's talk about literacy.
2:50
Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about the national report card
2:53
Speaker 1: that came out a week and a half, two weeks ago,
2:56
Speaker 1: and you know, the top lines on that are really embarrassing.
2:59
Speaker 1: I'll just run through a couple of them real quick,
3:01
Speaker 1: which is, twelfth grader scores dropped to their lowest level
3:04
Speaker 1: in more than twenty years. Scores for lowest performing students
3:08
Speaker 1: are at historic lows. In reading, the average score was
3:12
Speaker 1: the lowest score in the history of the assessment. It's bad.
3:17
Speaker 1: Thirty two percent of high school seniors scored below basic
3:20
Speaker 1: which means that they cannot find details in a text
3:24
Speaker 1: and helped them understand the meaning of the text. So
3:28
Speaker 1: we're not doing great. Math is equally problematic. But I
3:31
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about literacy because Kelsey to Ok is
3:35
Speaker 1: that how.
3:36
Speaker 4: You say your last name.
3:37
Speaker 1: She's a ye, Kelsey to Oak, who writes for The Argument,
3:41
Speaker 1: which is sort of a place that the left is
3:44
Speaker 1: trying to have fights about the abundance renewal that they
3:48
Speaker 1: want to go on, or what their party's going to be.
3:51
Speaker 1: And I think Kelsey thinks critically about a lot of things.
3:54
Speaker 1: And she has written about the Mississippi miracle and the
3:58
Speaker 1: Southern Surge wherein all the Red.
4:03
Speaker 4: States have figured out how to teach.
4:05
Speaker 1: Kids to read and Blue states are inexplicably not following
4:11
Speaker 1: their lead.
4:13
Speaker 2: It's wild because they're not doing anything special.
4:18
Speaker 3: That's what's really so crazy about this.
4:20
Speaker 2: I wrote about this in February and it wasn't It's
4:23
Speaker 2: not just Mississippi. I wrote about Louisiana and they have
4:27
Speaker 2: an amazing superintendent there. His name is Kad Brumley. You'll
4:30
Speaker 2: hear about him in other places. He credits the achievement
4:34
Speaker 2: with quote going back to basics and this is a
4:36
Speaker 2: quote from him. We've done symbolic things like shipping old
4:40
Speaker 2: school flash cards with math facts to every elementary school
4:43
Speaker 2: in the state. He said, that is what they came
4:46
Speaker 2: up with. They went back to flash cards, and they
4:49
Speaker 2: do things like they get kids help instead of just
4:52
Speaker 2: promoting them, I mean, really obvious, basic things. And yet
4:58
Speaker 2: the Blue states can't manage it. And you know one
5:01
Speaker 2: thing that Kelsey writes, and she says, I like this
5:05
Speaker 2: part a lot when she points out many people who
5:08
Speaker 2: aren't too focused on education policies seem to imagine Mississippi
5:12
Speaker 2: has simply simply stopped underperforming that they're now doing about
5:16
Speaker 2: as well as everyone else. This is not true. They
5:19
Speaker 2: haven't just caught up to your state. They are now
5:21
Speaker 2: wildly out performing it. And it was true for a
5:24
Speaker 2: while that these states were catching up, and then they
5:27
Speaker 2: caught up and went way past everyone well.
5:30
Speaker 4: And it's also that they are serving.
5:33
Speaker 1: Low income and minority children better than California.
5:37
Speaker 4: She uses California as an.
5:39
Speaker 1: Example because she lives there and she pays taxes there,
5:42
Speaker 1: where they spend a ton more money and are not
5:45
Speaker 1: serving these students. So it turns out that low income
5:48
Speaker 1: black students can learn to read, and that you shouldn't
5:52
Speaker 1: treat them as if they cannot and that this is
5:54
Speaker 1: some impossible task. In fact, you just use phonics, you
5:59
Speaker 1: teach teachers to teach phonics, and then you apply accountability.
6:04
Speaker 1: That's the three pronged attack that Mississippi used and that
6:08
Speaker 1: took them from forty ninth in literacy levels to ninth
6:11
Speaker 1: in literacy levels, and that Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama are all following.
6:16
Speaker 4: And look, it takes some time.
6:18
Speaker 1: Sure, the solution is actually quite simple, Yeah, and it
6:24
Speaker 1: is having these incredible results. And I kind of think
6:28
Speaker 1: I wonder too if, like in these negative partisan polarization times,
6:34
Speaker 1: that the way to get blue states to adopt these
6:36
Speaker 1: things is just to troll them by saying Mississippi is
6:38
Speaker 1: better than you.
6:41
Speaker 2: But the thing is they won't be like, let's get
6:43
Speaker 2: flash cards and work on phonics.
6:45
Speaker 3: They're going to be like, we need this new.
6:47
Speaker 2: Technology that everybody needs to pay more for. It's they
6:52
Speaker 2: don't understand doing things that have worked in the past. Again,
6:56
Speaker 2: they are completely focused on finding new angled solutions to this.
7:01
Speaker 3: I don't know.
7:02
Speaker 1: And that's why we lost ground over all those years,
7:04
Speaker 1: is that a bunch of people got conned by this
7:06
Speaker 1: other style of teaching reading, which is not science based,
7:10
Speaker 1: which does which doesn't work, and makes children sort of
7:13
Speaker 1: guess based on the context clues.
7:15
Speaker 2: Makes me insane context they're reading.
7:19
Speaker 1: It's a terrible idea, but because it was trendy and
7:23
Speaker 1: because it's not write coded, it went everywhere. And by
7:27
Speaker 1: the way, a lot of people say, well, if you
7:29
Speaker 1: hold kids back in third grade, which is what Mississippi does,
7:32
Speaker 1: and this is what the Mississippi teachers and administrators were
7:35
Speaker 1: concerned about. They said, if you hold them back in
7:38
Speaker 1: third grade, if they can't read, everybody's going to get
7:40
Speaker 1: held back. But it turns out that when you put
7:43
Speaker 1: a fire under everybody's butts and tell them they're going
7:46
Speaker 1: to have to back everyone who can read, they teach
7:49
Speaker 1: them to read. The adults take charge and do what
7:54
Speaker 1: they're supposed to do.
7:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just it's it's so weird that there's this
7:58
Speaker 2: stigma of being held back. You know, you ever see
8:01
Speaker 2: those videos like what's like cool if you're rich, but
8:04
Speaker 2: not cool if you're poor, having a refrigerator in your garage,
8:08
Speaker 2: like all kinds of like, you know, differences like speaking
8:11
Speaker 2: a second language. This seems like one of those things
8:14
Speaker 2: because in elite private schools, kids get held back so
8:19
Speaker 2: that they succeed and that they're at the top of
8:21
Speaker 2: their class and they're bigger than everybody else and just
8:24
Speaker 2: so many things. But if you get held back at
8:25
Speaker 2: like a poor school, you're like dumb, and you're this
8:28
Speaker 2: is the worst thing that could happen to you, and whatever.
8:30
Speaker 2: It makes no sense.
8:31
Speaker 3: I think the.
8:33
Speaker 2: Social promotion is so much worse than being held back,
8:37
Speaker 2: and the stigma around it really does need to change,
8:40
Speaker 2: because this doesn't work at all. Promoting kids from third
8:44
Speaker 2: grade who can't read is a.
8:46
Speaker 4: Terrible idea because they just lose ground forever for the rest.
8:50
Speaker 3: Of it, Nobody moves on without them. Yeah.
8:52
Speaker 1: I want to note this part too, and I appreciate
8:54
Speaker 1: her homing in on this. She asks why this, you know,
9:00
Speaker 1: huge success that seems rather simple, isn't getting implemented everywhere,
9:04
Speaker 1: isn't getting glossy magazine coverage, isn't getting documentaries, And some
9:08
Speaker 1: educational leaders tell her this is just a politically awkward story.
9:13
Speaker 1: Education policy expert Andy Rotherham told me, it's all these
9:16
Speaker 1: red states. This is a very ideological field, people struggle
9:19
Speaker 1: with calling balls and strikes. Karen Vates, who's a friend
9:22
Speaker 1: of mine, who's a great follow on Twitter, Yeah, says
9:24
Speaker 1: I think the story is going untold for the same
9:27
Speaker 1: reason journalists ignored the successful school reopening stories in Florida
9:30
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Sun Belt in August twenty twenty.
9:32
Speaker 1: The appetite to tell positive stories in red states is low.
9:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will say about that though.
9:39
Speaker 2: They also ignored European schools opening because they couldn't fit
9:44
Speaker 2: it into their ideological model. Now, if your an ideological
9:49
Speaker 2: model is more important than kids learning, you have a
9:52
Speaker 2: bad ideological model.
9:53
Speaker 3: And I think that that's just the case.
9:56
Speaker 2: And again, you know, why isn't this story being told.
9:58
Speaker 2: It is being told on the conservative side. It's being
10:01
Speaker 2: told by the people you don't listen to and don't
10:04
Speaker 2: read and don't follow.
10:05
Speaker 4: Carol's written about it, I've written about it.
10:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's good to start talking about it no normally.
10:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's good to see it get more coverage.
10:13
Speaker 1: And I think you know, what I've heard from literacy
10:15
Speaker 1: experts is that one of the things that needs to
10:17
Speaker 1: be done is people in blue states need to talk
10:20
Speaker 1: to their school boards and say why are you not Mississippi,
10:24
Speaker 1: Why aren't you making this happen?
10:26
Speaker 4: Because they're not.
10:27
Speaker 1: They're so ensconced in their bubbles that getting them to
10:30
Speaker 1: consider Mississippi's success is not going to happen without outside.
10:34
Speaker 3: Pressure and they deserve that pressure.
10:39
Speaker 4: Well, should we talk about their bubble and what it causes?
10:41
Speaker 3: Let's do that.
10:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got another good one out of des Moines, Iowa.
10:47
Speaker 1: The superintendent of des Moines Public Schools was picked up
10:53
Speaker 1: by Ice because he had a deportation order from twenty
10:58
Speaker 1: twenty four. He has had a weapons charge against him,
11:02
Speaker 1: he has a criminal record. It turned out so that
11:06
Speaker 1: he's probably falsified a lot of his educational achievements, and
11:11
Speaker 1: he went on the run when Ice came after him.
11:17
Speaker 1: So that's who they hired to be the superintendent of
11:19
Speaker 1: des Moines Public Schools. Jackie Norris, who was an ex
11:23
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama, which is a former Michelle Obama aide, is
11:28
Speaker 1: the head of this school board and led the hiring
11:32
Speaker 1: of this man.
11:33
Speaker 4: And I just want you to listen, Carol to what
11:35
Speaker 4: she had to.
11:35
Speaker 1: Say about how we should feel about the guy she
11:39
Speaker 1: hired being picked up by Ice.
11:42
Speaker 6: On behalf of the Des Moines Public School community. I
11:45
Speaker 6: want to provide an update from district leadership and the
11:48
Speaker 6: board on the current situation unfolding with our superintendent, Doctor
11:53
Speaker 6: Ian Roberts. Before we begin, it seems fitting to take
11:57
Speaker 6: a page out of doctor Robert's book and ask the
12:01
Speaker 6: community to engage in radical empathy as we work through
12:05
Speaker 6: the situation together. Radical empathy is the recognition that we
12:11
Speaker 6: can disagree and still empathize with each other the respect
12:17
Speaker 6: of others humanity. This concept will be essential as we
12:21
Speaker 6: wait to learn more.
12:24
Speaker 4: We do not have all the facts.
12:26
Speaker 6: There is much we do not know. However, what we
12:30
Speaker 6: do know is that doctor Roberts has been an integral
12:33
Speaker 6: part of our school community since he joined over two
12:37
Speaker 6: years ago. During his time with our district, he has
12:41
Speaker 6: shown up in ways big and small, and has advocated
12:45
Speaker 6: for students and staff concept.
12:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of words to say.
12:52
Speaker 2: He's on our team and we're going to defend him.
12:55
Speaker 4: By the way, we don't know all the facts.
12:57
Speaker 1: Your actual job is to know the facts about the
13:01
Speaker 1: guy you hired. And I just when it comes to
13:05
Speaker 1: education in liberal areas where liberals make up the school boards,
13:13
Speaker 1: the stuff they will tell you is acceptable is astounding.
13:17
Speaker 1: And I know because I live in one of these
13:19
Speaker 1: areas where the school boards will just tell you, like,
13:21
Speaker 1: no school being closed for two years is good fine.
13:26
Speaker 1: Having a sex offender in several high school locker rooms,
13:31
Speaker 1: who does yea, seems fine to us. In fact, let's
13:35
Speaker 1: lobby for more of that. I mean, it's just shocking.
13:39
Speaker 1: The bar is so so so low. And teachers like
13:46
Speaker 1: she's going to tell parents who are upset about this
13:49
Speaker 1: empathize with.
13:50
Speaker 3: Him, radical empathy, and with me who hired.
13:54
Speaker 1: Him, just like google your guy, Google your guy.
14:00
Speaker 3: Right, doesn't seem like that's a stretch, right.
14:03
Speaker 1: His public pronouncements about himself are all conflicting about where
14:07
Speaker 1: he went to school, where he was born. He signed
14:09
Speaker 1: paperwork apparently saying he was a citizen when he in
14:13
Speaker 1: other public statements said he was born in Guyana.
14:15
Speaker 4: It is wild.
14:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is where it leads when you protect
14:23
Speaker 2: your side at all costs, and the left is very
14:26
Speaker 2: very good at that, and this is what happens.
14:29
Speaker 4: By the way.
14:29
Speaker 1: He also Guy Binson pointed out to me this morning
14:32
Speaker 1: that he had instituted a policy about hiring criminals. People
14:39
Speaker 1: with criminal backgrounds was work he was for it because
14:44
Speaker 1: it would diversify their staff.
14:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not racist.
14:50
Speaker 1: I just yeah, these people are beyond don't let them
14:55
Speaker 1: fool you. Make sure they teach your kids how to read,
14:57
Speaker 1: and don't take this nonsense from them.
15:00
Speaker 4: Oh it's bad.
15:02
Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more on normally talking and
15:06
Speaker 2: the New York Times just can't help itself not have
15:09
Speaker 2: radical empathy for Charlie Kirk.
15:11
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
15:15
Speaker 2: We are back on normally where the.
15:18
Speaker 3: New York Times just can't seem.
15:21
Speaker 2: To get itself together on the death of Charlie Kirk.
15:25
Speaker 2: They don't want to be the kind of people that
15:27
Speaker 2: have staffers rooting on murder of ideological foes. But that's
15:32
Speaker 2: sort of where they're edging up to. So here we are,
15:36
Speaker 2: and it's a Tannahisi Coates who has some words about
15:42
Speaker 2: Charlie being a hate monger. And I he says, I
15:47
Speaker 2: think Charlie Kirk was a hate monger. I take no
15:49
Speaker 2: joy in the killing of anyone, no matter what they said.
15:52
Speaker 2: But if you ask me what the truth of his
15:54
Speaker 2: life was, I would have to tell you it's hate. Now,
15:58
Speaker 2: Coates excused the rape murder of Israelis and said that
16:02
Speaker 2: if he were gosen, he might participate in that as well.
16:06
Speaker 2: So don't tell me that this guy is not all
16:09
Speaker 2: about hate. He also very famously said that he could
16:13
Speaker 2: not relate at all to the murdered firefighters and policemen
16:17
Speaker 2: who died on nine to eleven. They were not people
16:19
Speaker 2: he felt sorry for.
16:21
Speaker 3: He is full of hate and rage.
16:23
Speaker 2: And yet is constantly telling us who else is hateful.
16:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had a conversation with Ezra Kline, who is
16:30
Speaker 1: one of so very few liberals who seems to understand
16:36
Speaker 1: what the murder of Charlie Kirk requires of them, Ezra Cline,
16:40
Speaker 1: And like one other person, who is this liberal professor
16:45
Speaker 1: who wrote for The New York Times, so credit for
16:47
Speaker 1: publishing it. Nicholas Kreele, an associate professor of business law
16:51
Speaker 1: at Georgia College and State University who wrote a piece
16:55
Speaker 1: about how he advised a turning Points chapter at his
16:59
Speaker 1: college because a conservative professor wouldn't because he was afraid
17:03
Speaker 1: he'd get lambasted or fired. And this guy with liberal
17:07
Speaker 1: creds was like, I'll step in and do it, and
17:09
Speaker 1: in the spirit of free exchange, even though I disagree
17:12
Speaker 1: with everything they say.
17:13
Speaker 4: And then Ezra Klein is like, yeah, this is an
17:15
Speaker 4: attack on all of us.
17:16
Speaker 1: It's important to honor what he was doing on campuses.
17:21
Speaker 1: This made Tanasi Coats very angry, and they had a
17:26
Speaker 1: public disagreement about it, and then they sat down for
17:29
Speaker 1: a podcast together. And I just want to hear Tahanasi
17:33
Speaker 1: Coats wrestle with this while talking to Klein. It's you
17:39
Speaker 1: can tell how much it pains him to think that
17:42
Speaker 1: this guy is worth saying, Oh, he shouldn't be shot.
17:45
Speaker 5: Here we go, having not done the research that I
17:48
Speaker 5: eventually did for the cola. There was something off about
17:50
Speaker 5: what I knew about this guy and the presentation of
17:54
Speaker 5: him as and I don't want to misquote you here,
17:57
Speaker 5: but as basically a paragon of politics and how politics
18:01
Speaker 5: should be done. So I think I had the same
18:03
Speaker 5: reaction that most ordinary people would have, which is absolute
18:07
Speaker 5: horror at the idea that this guy was somewhere speaking
18:12
Speaker 5: and was killed. But I always think it's like important
18:17
Speaker 5: to differentiate how people diversus how they live. And then
18:22
Speaker 5: after doing the research, I had to be honest with you.
18:26
Speaker 5: That's when it got really really difficult. When I went
18:29
Speaker 5: past my initial impressions and started like going through all
18:33
Speaker 5: of the clips of the things he said, the way
18:35
Speaker 5: he talked about people, the way he you know, described
18:38
Speaker 5: groups in ways that honestly, even as I was writing it,
18:41
Speaker 5: I was uncomfortable saying. And so the idea that this
18:45
Speaker 5: guy should be in any way celebrated for how he
18:50
Speaker 5: conducted politics, the fact that he just slurred across the board,
18:56
Speaker 5: you know, all sorts of groups of people and then
18:59
Speaker 5: ran an organizedation we're in you know, which appeared to
19:05
Speaker 5: me just a haven a hatred. You know, I would
19:10
Speaker 5: not want that to be a model for my politics.
19:13
Speaker 5: And I know you know as we talked between us
19:16
Speaker 5: that you know, you are not attempting to make a
19:19
Speaker 5: statement for his the entirety of it.
19:22
Speaker 2: Obviously obviously who was talking about the entirety of it.
19:26
Speaker 2: I despised that line of thinking so much. No, No,
19:31
Speaker 2: you and I have talked about this on here. But
19:33
Speaker 2: I didn't agree with everything Mary Catherine said.
19:36
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:36
Speaker 3: I didn't agree with everything.
19:37
Speaker 2: Mary Catherine said, because I'm a normal person, and I
19:40
Speaker 2: don't agree with anything anybody says. I don't agree with
19:42
Speaker 2: everything my husband says. I don't agree with anything. I
19:45
Speaker 2: can't think of anyone where I would agree with everything
19:47
Speaker 2: that makes no sense, and the fact that there's this
19:52
Speaker 2: guy who is considered a thinker and so smart and
19:55
Speaker 2: I just don't find him that at all. But saying
19:59
Speaker 2: you know, I, I know you weren't talking about the
20:01
Speaker 2: entirety of Charlie Kirk's commentary, like obviously as a climb wasn't.
20:06
Speaker 3: And if you watch Ezra Kline's face in that.
20:08
Speaker 2: Clip, it's like he's looking at him like we are
20:10
Speaker 2: never going to win again.
20:12
Speaker 1: No, well, that's partly what he's worried about, is that
20:16
Speaker 1: if your goal, explicitly, as Tanahasekoss is, is to say
20:23
Speaker 1: that this form of argumentation that Kirk was doing is
20:27
Speaker 1: on its face evil and hateful because you disagreed with
20:31
Speaker 1: his frankly very normal policy positions, then yeah, the Democratic
20:37
Speaker 1: Party is going to have trouble winning people over because
20:40
Speaker 1: you are unwilling to talk to them.
20:42
Speaker 4: And I want to follow that up with the.
20:46
Speaker 1: Nicole Hannah Jones, who is another thinker alleged thinker from
20:51
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty period, who is the author of the
20:54
Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen Project, which has all of its own accuracy
20:58
Speaker 1: issues issues. She comes straight out and says it in
21:02
Speaker 1: her column for The New York Times, because New York
21:04
Speaker 1: Times needs to publish a couple people ragging on Kirk.
21:08
Speaker 1: In some parts of polite society, it now holds that
21:11
Speaker 1: if many of Kirk's views were repugnant, his willingness to
21:14
Speaker 1: calmly argue about them and his insistence that people hash
21:17
Speaker 1: out their disagreements through discourse at a time of such division,
21:20
Speaker 1: made him a free speech advocate and an exemplar of
21:23
Speaker 1: how we should engage politically across difference. But for those
21:26
Speaker 1: who were directly targeted by Kirk's rhetoric, I could think
21:29
Speaker 1: of maybe a different phrase for that in this case.
21:32
Speaker 4: But she does it on purpose.
21:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, of Quesse, she does.
21:35
Speaker 1: His thinking seems to place the civility of Kirk's style
21:38
Speaker 1: of argument over the incivility of what he argued through
21:41
Speaker 1: gossamer tributes. Kirk's cruel condemnation of transgender people and his
21:45
Speaker 1: racist throwback views about black Americans were no longer anathema,
21:49
Speaker 1: but instead or being treated as just another political view
21:52
Speaker 1: to be respectfully debated, like a position on tax rates
21:55
Speaker 1: or health care policy. Okay, she's incorrect about everything, incites
22:00
Speaker 1: him saying and I don't know how it got through
22:03
Speaker 1: all the fact checkers over at the New York Times,
22:06
Speaker 1: but she's trying to disqualify all conservative thought. If you
22:13
Speaker 1: express yourself in civil ways on a college campus because
22:18
Speaker 1: Jones disagrees with you, she just says, you're a racist, fascist,
22:23
Speaker 1: homophobe whatever, and we can't dignify this.
22:27
Speaker 4: But nobody is the racist.
22:30
Speaker 1: Fascist homophobe here except for maybe the person saying we
22:33
Speaker 1: can't argue right.
22:35
Speaker 6: And she was.
22:35
Speaker 2: She led so much of the silencing of the of
22:39
Speaker 2: the cancel culture years. You know, any any criticism of
22:43
Speaker 2: her was racist. Anything that you know she didn't like
22:46
Speaker 2: was racist. She made us at each other's throats. And
22:50
Speaker 2: I have just no sympathy for the New York Times
22:53
Speaker 2: being stuck with her and you know, having her be
22:57
Speaker 2: kind of their their most prominent voice, because they sort
23:00
Speaker 2: of deserve it at this point.
23:02
Speaker 6: Yeah.
23:02
Speaker 1: And the other thing is she doesn't write, so I
23:05
Speaker 1: guess I'm glad something finally got her to do.
23:07
Speaker 2: So, right.
23:08
Speaker 1: I know, who knows how much they pay her, But
23:11
Speaker 1: she doesn't turn out a lot of copy, and she.
23:15
Speaker 2: Spends her time like on you know X but now
23:18
Speaker 2: probably a blue sky arguing that like Anne Frank had
23:21
Speaker 2: a lot of white privilege. I mean, the true story,
23:24
Speaker 2: this is what she does well.
23:25
Speaker 1: And apparently the Blue Sky folks are very angry that
23:29
Speaker 1: Klein sat down with Dona Assikots and slightly disagreed with
23:33
Speaker 1: him in this interview, because like how, I mean, what
23:37
Speaker 1: is it?
23:38
Speaker 4: Is it Barry Weiss that calls it the moral flattening
23:41
Speaker 4: of the earth right.
23:43
Speaker 1: If arguing is fascism, then yeah, we're not allowed to
23:47
Speaker 1: do anything.
23:48
Speaker 2: Apparently, no disagreement allowed. Obviously.
23:53
Speaker 1: I call it like they reverse victim and offender all
23:57
Speaker 1: the time. Like the New York Times is convinced that
24:00
Speaker 1: lefty thinkers are the actual victims of Charlie Kirk's murder.
24:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that's it.
24:06
Speaker 4: I don't think that's it.
24:07
Speaker 1: Can I add one more thing that also goes with
24:09
Speaker 1: our first topic, After like a week of being told
24:14
Speaker 1: that we're the violent ones and that left the left
24:17
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't valorize violence, and it's so far from the truth.
24:22
Speaker 1: We are but lambs to the slaughter in this country.
24:26
Speaker 1: We lefties who don't do any of this. The Chicago
24:29
Speaker 1: Teachers Union honored Asada Secure in a post today. We
24:34
Speaker 1: honor the life and legacy of a revolutionary fighter, a
24:36
Speaker 1: fierce writer, or a revered elder of black liberation, and
24:38
Speaker 1: a leader of freedom whose spirit continues to live in
24:41
Speaker 1: our struggle. She's also convicted murderer of a New Jersey
24:45
Speaker 1: state patrolman. She was involved in various armed bank robberies,
24:50
Speaker 1: I believe, hostage holdings, a he she escaped to Cuba.
24:55
Speaker 1: This was all political violence. That is good, and it's teachers,
25:01
Speaker 1: unions and the press and entities of the left are
25:04
Speaker 1: happy to say so, and there's.
25:07
Speaker 2: No real blowback for them. There's nobody on the left
25:11
Speaker 2: saying this is a line too far. I just again,
25:14
Speaker 2: we've talked about this, but there's no self policing on
25:17
Speaker 2: the left. There's no kind of think pieces like oh,
25:21
Speaker 2: this is not who we are. None of that's going
25:23
Speaker 2: to happen because they're on the left, and that's the squad.
25:27
Speaker 1: Well, and when Ezra attempts to very lightly say maybe
25:30
Speaker 1: this was an attack on us, all they're like, no,
25:32
Speaker 1: it wasn't.
25:33
Speaker 4: It was an attack on the right people, right, the
25:35
Speaker 4: correct people.
25:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, good luck with that, Ezra.
25:37
Speaker 4: He's trying.
25:39
Speaker 1: We'll be right back on normally.
25:40
Speaker 7: But first it was nearly two years ago the terrorists
25:43
Speaker 7: murdered more than twelve hundred innocent Israelis and took two
25:46
Speaker 7: hundred and fifty hostages. Today, it seems as that the
25:49
Speaker 7: cries of the dead and dying have been drowned out
25:51
Speaker 7: by shouts of anti Semitic hatred and the most brutal
25:54
Speaker 7: attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust has been forgotten.
25:57
Speaker 7: Yet is the world looks away? A light shines in
25:59
Speaker 7: the darkness. It's a movement of love and support for
26:01
Speaker 7: the people of Israel called Flags of Fellowship, and it's
26:04
Speaker 7: organized by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And
26:07
Speaker 7: on October fifth, just a few weeks away, millions of
26:10
Speaker 7: Americans will prayerfully plant an Israeli flag in honor and
26:13
Speaker 7: solidarity with the victims of October seventh, twenty twenty three
26:17
Speaker 7: and their grieving families. And now you can be a
26:19
Speaker 7: part of this movement too, And I know you'll want
26:21
Speaker 7: to to get more information about how you can join
26:23
Speaker 7: the Flags of Fellowship movement, visit the Fellowship online at
26:26
Speaker 7: IFCJ dot org.
26:28
Speaker 4: That's IFCJ dot org.
26:29
Speaker 7: This is an issue that is close to both Carols
26:32
Speaker 7: and my hearts IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org
26:36
Speaker 7: will return to normally.
26:37
Speaker 2: Right after this, we are back on normally where President
26:43
Speaker 2: Trump says he's going to authorize the National Guard to
26:46
Speaker 2: use quote full force in Portland to get that city
26:50
Speaker 2: under control. Now, of course, the Portland mayor says that
26:57
Speaker 2: there's no problem in Portland. What are you even talking about.
27:00
Speaker 2: Portland's doing just super duper well. And they're suing the
27:05
Speaker 2: Trump administration. In the suit, Oregon and Portland claim that
27:09
Speaker 2: the federal government does not have the grounds to call
27:11
Speaker 2: in the Guard. I don't know how that could be true,
27:13
Speaker 2: and said the city has seen quote small protests near
27:17
Speaker 2: an immigration and customs enforcement facility in recent weeks. The
27:22
Speaker 2: Democratic governor says that she spoke to the President and
27:24
Speaker 2: said there is no insurrection or threat to public safety
27:28
Speaker 2: that necessitates a military intervention in Portland or any other
27:31
Speaker 2: city in our state. Despite this and all evidence of
27:35
Speaker 2: the contrary, she says, Trump has chosen to disregard Oregonian's
27:39
Speaker 2: safety and ability to govern ourselves. This is not necessary,
27:42
Speaker 2: and it is unlawful, and it will make Oregonians less safe.
27:47
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
27:50
Speaker 4: Again, we're reversing victim and offender. Yeah.
27:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, the reason that he's sending people to protect a
27:58
Speaker 1: federal facility. The federal facility has been surrounded and under
28:04
Speaker 1: siege by people who are not merely protesters. And I
28:07
Speaker 1: know that the left has decided that speech is violence
28:10
Speaker 1: and their violence speech, but violence is not speech. And
28:14
Speaker 1: if you surround a federal facility and you will not
28:19
Speaker 1: cooperate with law enforcement when you are asked to leave,
28:22
Speaker 1: that law enforcement has the right to detain you, to
28:25
Speaker 1: arrest you, to disperse you, and to sometimes use forced
28:29
Speaker 1: to do that. I'm so sick of these babies acting
28:32
Speaker 1: like they do not understand this.
28:35
Speaker 2: Mark Hemingway is from Portland, and I always found that
28:39
Speaker 2: he definitely has a warmth for the place. But he
28:43
Speaker 2: tweets that, you know all the Senator Pat Murray had
28:47
Speaker 2: tweeted Portland is a beautiful and vibrant city. It is
28:49
Speaker 2: not a war zone. The president needs to keep the
28:51
Speaker 2: military out of the Pacific Northwest, just another abusive.
28:54
Speaker 3: Power blah blah blah.
28:55
Speaker 2: Mark Hemingway retweets that and says I see vibrant as
28:58
Speaker 2: part of the talking point. Downtown Portland has one of
29:01
Speaker 2: the highest vacancy rates in the country because of the
29:04
Speaker 2: deranged homeless everywhere. It is a ghost town. It is
29:07
Speaker 2: decidedly not vibrant. He in another tweet, says that downtown
29:12
Speaker 2: Portland is mostly vacant and full of stabby homeless addicts.
29:15
Speaker 2: Portland has the second most crime of any city in America.
29:18
Speaker 2: Vibrant and peaceful is objectively a lie, I believe Mark Hemingway.
29:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I have been there in the last
29:27
Speaker 1: eight issue, like it's been a while, but like in
29:29
Speaker 1: the last ten years, I've been several times.
29:32
Speaker 4: And yes, it is hollowed out. Yes.
29:35
Speaker 1: Many American cities decided to adopt policies that were basically
29:39
Speaker 1: suicide for their downt town areas in twenty twenty, allowing
29:44
Speaker 1: for rioting, allowing for vandalism, allowing for occupation of major
29:50
Speaker 1: parts of cities, allowing for the burning of municipal buildings,
29:56
Speaker 1: and that violent attacks on law enforcement. These things take
30:01
Speaker 1: a toll on those areas. And we all remember what
30:07
Speaker 1: Portland looked like twenty twenty and what was allowed.
30:10
Speaker 4: And when you allow that, those things continue to happen. Yep,
30:15
Speaker 4: they continue to happen.
30:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it doesn't have to be that way is
30:18
Speaker 2: the reality of the situation. I think that we think
30:23
Speaker 2: of these cities as lost forever.
30:25
Speaker 4: Look.
30:26
Speaker 2: I lived in New York when it made a spectacular
30:29
Speaker 2: turnaround that nobody thought was possible. I live in the
30:33
Speaker 2: Miami area. Now it's Miami's booming, and they've cleaned it
30:36
Speaker 2: up so much. My kids get shocked when they see
30:41
Speaker 2: homeless people, and it's you know, we came from Brooklyn.
30:44
Speaker 2: It wasn't like they had never seen homeless people before,
30:46
Speaker 2: but they had gotten used to living in a place
30:49
Speaker 2: where it wasn't normal to have people just sleeping in
30:52
Speaker 2: the streets, and it wasn't normal to have ten cities.
30:55
Speaker 2: And now when we go places and that does exist,
30:57
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, why why does this happen? I think
31:00
Speaker 2: cities need to remember that they can fix themselves, and
31:05
Speaker 2: I don't see why they wouldn't let the Trump administration
31:09
Speaker 2: try to help. Trump administration has done an excellent job
31:11
Speaker 2: in Washington, d C. I think there's very few people
31:14
Speaker 2: who can argue otherwise. It's gotten cleaned up in a
31:17
Speaker 2: way that nobody expected, and crime is down. All of
31:20
Speaker 2: that is good. There's nothing bad about it. Just because
31:23
Speaker 2: you hate Donald Trump.
31:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the thing that we really have
31:26
Speaker 1: to consider is that the liberal bubble inside these cities,
31:30
Speaker 1: and I think our show today is some evidence of
31:33
Speaker 1: it is simply pro the.
31:35
Speaker 2: Crime, yeah, and not being pro crime.
31:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.
31:38
Speaker 1: Just they put the criminal and the criminal's rights and
31:43
Speaker 1: radical empathy above radical the livelihood and quality of life
31:48
Speaker 1: of their citizens, and that does not work for normal people.
31:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a crazy thing to do. Stop with the
31:56
Speaker 2: radical empathy. Just regular empathy, whether.
31:59
Speaker 1: It's your whether it's your superintendent, or adopting literacy standards
32:05
Speaker 1: of a state like Mississippi, or normal just having not
32:10
Speaker 1: open drug markets in the middle of your streets.
32:14
Speaker 2: Just be normal, Just be normal what.
32:17
Speaker 1: Some people would like and like Trump has limited power
32:20
Speaker 1: in various cities, but if you're going after a federal building,
32:24
Speaker 1: he has the right to protect it.
32:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he has that authority.
32:27
Speaker 1: Well.
32:27
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
32:31
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
32:34
Speaker 2: in touch with us at Normallythepod at gmail dot com.
32:37
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally